Saturday, January 19, 2008

How to Ignore Him Now?

So results are in from Nevada and it looks like Ron Paul has done very well indeed. He's in second place with 13% to Romney's 51% - his best showing yet. This means he's officially beaten all of the Republican candidates save Romney (the presumed nominee) in at least one contest. Any media outlet that would now like to claim he isn't a serious candidate will be indulging in fantasy.

Better yet, the linked article points out that 25% of the Republican caucus-goers in Nevada are Mormon (it is next-door neighbors with Utah after all) and that about half of Romney's votes owe to this group. If you look at the non-Mormon vote, Romney's lead over Ron Paul is slight at best, and Ron Paul's lead over McCain more substantial. In other words, without the homecourt identity politics advantage, Romeny would still have beat Paul, but not nearly as convincingly.

It should be poined out that Romney has yet to win a contest without resorting to identity politics. In Nevada it's his religion, in Michigan it's because he "grew up there." He obviously can't identify with every region of the country; we'll see how well he does out of his homecourt(s).

But I'll think about that later. Right now I'm positively ecstatic at Paul's 2nd-place showing. This means my hopes for a third party run are far from out of the question. Maybe Paul will forge libertarians into a viable voting block after all.

Thanks for turning me on to No Coercion, Darren! I've only been able to skim it today, and must admit to finding its "genius" reading level intimidating! ;-) I'll give it a thorough read soon. Looks very promising indeed on a first glance.